American Meat Institute

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William R. Kinnaird, 83, an advertising executive for 36 years and former president of the Winnetka Board of Education, died Sunday in Evanston Hospital. Mr. Kinnaird was first elected to the Winnetka board in 1958 and served until 1964, the last two years as president. He was a member of the board of directors of the Winnetka Community Chest from 1955 through 1958. He was product advertising manager for Swift & Co. from 1934 to 1940, and then became the first advertising manager for the American Meat Institute.

By Robert N. Rebholtz, Chairman of the Board, National Live Stock & Meat Board | November 29, 1992

Some special interest groups and media coverage might lead you to believe that the meat industry is fighting nutrition labeling and opposed to disclosing the fat content of its products. On the contrary, farmers and ranchers have been avid supporters of nutrition labeling. In fact, in 1985, we developed a nutrition labeling program, Meat Nutri-Facts, and introduced it to supermarkets nationwide. The program was an industry plan, jointly sponsored by the National Live Stock & Meat Board, the American Meat Institute and the Food Marketing Institute, to provide nutritional information-including fat content-to consumers at the fresh meat case.

When you shop at the supermarket, do you bother to read the nutrition labels on packaged foods? If so, do you find the labels provide enough information or do they add to your confusion about the product? The Food and Drug Administration would like to know how consumers feel about these and other questions about food labels. The FDA is developing regulations that would require new nutrition labels on most packaged food products and a voluntry nutrition information program for the most popular varieties of fresh fish, fruits, and vegetables.

Porter Maxwell Jarvis, 89, retired chairman of the board of Swift & Co., helped the meat-packing giant to expand its scientific research, companywide automation, the modernization of its plants and expansion of its non-food lines. A resident of Sandwich, Ill., where he owned a farm, Mr. Jarvis died Monday in a nursing home in Tubac, Ariz. Mr. Jarvis was born in Clarksburg, W.Va., where his father was a banker and a farmer. In high school there, he played end and tackle on the football team, while also helping to raise cattle on both his father's and grandfather's farms.

As restaurants move to more casual dining and greater menu variety to maintain business during these tough times, red meat entrees continue to top menu offerings but are losing ground slowly to pasta and poultry. In a National Restaurant Association survey of 100 menus selected from across the country, red meat was represented in 21 percent of all entrees offered in 1990, down 3 percent from 1985 but still at the top of the list. Although red meat offerings still topped menus, the number of actual items within the red meat category declined by 15 percent from 1985 to 1990.

A new U.S.-European trade spat involving meat has developed to complicate the world trade talks, which already are deadlocked on farm issues just a month before the negotiations are supposed to conclude. The U.S. government is poised to retaliate against the European Community, probably next week, after the Europeans banned imports of U.S. pork products effective Nov. 1-and beef at the end of the year-citing safety concerns. Labeling the ban as a thinly disguised trade action that has nothing to do with packing-plant sanitary conditions, American meat exporters and producers have called on the U.S. to respond in kind.

The Department of Labor reached agreement with the United Food and Commercial Workers, AFL-CIO, the American Meat Institute and the National Institute for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to test government guidelines aimed at reducing repetitive motion trauma in plants that process red meat. The initial program includes voluntary guidelines and a special inspection program. Companies that don`t agree to the guidelines will be subject to inspections beginning in 1991.

Elmer W. Kneip, 87, former chairman and chief executive officer of E.W. Kneip Inc., was one of the last of the major meatpackers in the Chicago area. He also developed from scratch a chain of meat markets and whole meat operations that covered 22 cities, with retail markets in Illinois, Michigan, Indiana and Ohio. Memorial services for Mr. Kneip, an Oak Park resident, will be held at 4 p.m. Friday in the First Presbyterian Church of River Forest, 7551 Quick Ave., River Forest. He died last Friday in Rush-Presbyterian-St.

The American Meat Institute is urging the Agriculture Department to withdraw a proposal for overhauling federal inspections at meat and poultry processing plants. USDA made the proposal in November to carry out a 1986 law that would get tougher on inspections of the most troublesome processing plants but ease up on those with good records.

A butcher back in grandmother's day was a cook's best friend. He was the one you went to for all kinds of information about meat. Every kind of question from "What should I have for dinner?" to "How do I fix it?" commonly were asked of the butcher. But in the early 1940s, that character began to disappear. He first retreated behind glass panels that enclosed sterile-looking cutting rooms. He still was visible, but if you wanted to talk to him you had to ring the bell. And when you did, you often got the feeling that you had thrown a monkey wrench into a well-oiled piece of precision machinery.